


Squad Goals V: Thom, Numair, and Daine

by dunedinparsley



Series: Squad Goals [2]
Category: The Song of the Lioness - Tamora Pierce, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Angst, Gen, Physical Abuse, Platonic Hurt/Comfort, domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21867571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dunedinparsley/pseuds/dunedinparsley
Summary: Daine and Numair arrive at the Conté household for Christmas, and find Thom bloody and bruised. They promptly try to fix it.Pretty much shameless angst and social solidarity in the face of abuse.Content warnings for domestic physical abuse; descriptions of injury; and internalised guilt and shame on the part of the victim.
Relationships: background Veralidaine Sarrasri/Numair Salmalin
Series: Squad Goals [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/909621
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12





	Squad Goals V: Thom, Numair, and Daine

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last year but didn't post it as it's not chronologically next in the Squad Goals series, but thought I may as well get it out of the way anyway. My writing style has changed a bit (and improved, I'd like to think) since writing this, but uhhh shameless angst and people comforting one another in myriad ways is my niche.

It was two days off Christmas, and Daine was in a foul mood. She'd been awake since well before dawn with morning sickness. Numair was blissfully oblivious, head caught in a complex abuse case which he could find both not enough and too many precedent cases for. Daine chittered nervously, rubbing her hand intermittently over her growing stomach, even as she drove.  
  
Jon's country house was closer than they thought, and they arrived well before they were supposed to. The moment they were out of the car Numair's distance evaporated, coming to Daine's side just as a rush of dizziness overtook her. "Apparently morning sickness makes for a healthier baby," Daine said, her accent thicker than usual with the exhaustion of pregnancy.  
  
"Your health is paramount," Numair retorted, albeit gently. "Let's get you inside and sitting down, I'll bring in the bags." He was almost carrying her, the pressure he put on her waist.  
  
"Numair, I can walk by myself. You get the bags, I'll go in. Jon said the door would be open, yeah?" The space was just excessive, the property kilometres away from anyone else's, and while they had parked quite close to the house itself, Numair looked doubtful as to whether Daine should be allowed out into the foreign nation of the Cont _é_ household alone.  
  
She rolled her eyes and walked ahead, and while he took his time he did as told, hoisting their backpacks and suitcases over his shoulders and arms. It was a personal challenge to take all of them at once.  
  
"Numair! NUMAIR!"  
  
The bags tumbled to the ground and he sprinted forwards, at Daine's side within seconds. "What is it, is it the baby--?" She shushed him, and a distant corner of his brain said that if he needed to be quiet because of a risk her yelling had just put them in great danger. What he focused on, however, was the spattered blood over the floor and walls at the end of the corridor. "Stay here. Daine, don't argue, you're pregnant." She glared at him, but nodded. "Get your phone out, be ready to call police." Her phone was already in her hand.  
  
Numair's heart was pounding. Daine could probably hear it, what with ears like hers. He was a lawyer not a cop. The blood wasn't from a major blood loss. It was the type of blood made by someone moving while bleeding, or someone who had stepped in blood, scattered it somehow.  
  
The corridor turned off to the right and the left, and there was heavy breathing from the right, and from-- "It's me," Daine said. He nodded tersely, didn't turn back to face her, and made the steps forward and to the right. There was more blood here. Huddled against the turn of the living room door was a small figure with bright red hair, covered in a large black coat. "Alanna?" Daine whispered, voice choked with fear.  
  
Numair saw the length of the hair, the vacant expression of resigned grief, the breadth of the jaw. "No. No, it's Thom."  
  
Thom twitched slightly, and his eyes sparked with fight. He struggled to pull himself up, but a pained little sob broke free of his chest. There were bruises growing over his eye, and on his neck. Numair got down on his hands and knees and crawled towards Thom, he didn't want to stand above him. "Thom. Thom, it's Numair." Thom pulled the jacket tighter around himself. "Thom, do you know where you are?"  
  
"Yes. Yes, I'm at the Conté mansion." Numair could hear Daine's inhalation. Thom's voice was cut off to the sound of gravel, whether from the pressure that had caused the bruises on his throat or from timeless sobbing or both, Numair couldn't tell.  
  
"Do you know who I am?"  
  
Thom tried to nod, but his eyes spun, he looked dizzy. "Numair," he whispered.  
  
"Daine, call an ambulan--"  
  
"No!" Thom tried to yell, and he let the jacket drop to his lap. "No, don't, please don't."  
  
Numair's stomach dropped when he saw the familiar panic, the mix of hatred and fear and love and doubt. "Thom, you've had your airway cut off, you're bleeding," he said, as gently as he could.  
  
"The bleeding's stopped. I'm not concussed." That was Alanna's passion in his eyes, the fierce refusal to be pitied, looked down on. His will would damn-well overpower Numair's if need be.  
  
"Daine, there's a water bottle in my backpack, I dropped it just outside the house. Please go get it." She didn't argue. "Who did this to you?" Numair asked. Thom was shivering, and Numair sat back to take off his jacket. "Can I put this over you?" Thom nodded, braced himself as Numair moved close to wrap the jacket around him. "How long have you been here?"  
  
"Since... since twelve. I think." Talking didn't seem to hurt him yet, and Numair needed to establish just how immoral it would be to not call an ambulance. Raoul will be here soon, he thought, Raoul's a proper doctor.  
  
"And do you know what time it is now?"  
  
"Two?" Thom offered. He shuffled to bring the coats closer to him, and Numair saw a bruise on his wrist, matching the one on his neck.  
  
"Almost four," he corrected. Daine was careful to make her presence known, putting more weight in her steps than usual. "Can you hold a bottle, or would you like one of us to--?"  
  
"I can hold it." Thom's hand snaked forward from under the coats, this one unmarred by bruising, to take the water from Daine. He fumbled in uncapping it, but drank like a man in a desert.  
  
"Daine, please call Raoul - don't tell him anything but that there's been an accident involving Thom at the Conté house, and that we can't call an ambulance." Thom stopped drinking to look at him with equal parts desperation and anger. "Swallow your pride."   
  
"I don't want to be made a spectacle of," Thom whispered. There was no water left. Bruises on throat and left wrist, blood, likely from abdominal trauma, some form of leg or foot injury...  
  
"You won't be. I promise." Numair pulled the elastic hair band from his wrist and pulled his hair back, the neat pull grounding him in the moment. Thom's head had lolled back against the door. Daine's voice could be heard from the corridor, quiet and urgent. "Where's the blood from?"  
  
"He shoved me against the heater. I think I hit it... too hard, the skin broke on my side." 'He'. Jonathan, Roald, Gary, Gareth, Roger.  
  
"And your leg?"  
  
"My ankle turned wrong," Thom said. He pulled the coats off, and Numair felt a crack develop in his emotional wall when he saw that the first coat couldn't be Thom's - it was Large, an Alexander McQueen piece. Thom was at the most Small, and the jacket was not to his tastes.  
  
Thom's white buttoned shirt was stained red. It was confronting, but it was not as bad as it looked - he had gathered up tissues to soak up the blood on his side and tightened his shoelaces around his ankle, he was bracing it for pain relief. He wasn't concussed, Numair felt safe to say. Just grief-stricken, battered.  
  
"When will Jon be here?" Thom asked weakly. "I don't want him to see me like this. And... and Alanna." His voice cracked on his sister's name.  
  
"They'll both be at least two hours. Raoul will be here before then. He's a doctor."  
  
"I know." Thom's cheeks were flushed, in stark contrast to the fact that his skin was drained white. His eyes were puffy and red, that same violet as Alanna's.  
  
"Would you like me to help you stand, and get you to a proper chair and some proper blankets?"

Thom was thinking it over very, very thoroughly.  
  
"Raoul will be here in half an hour," Daine said. "He asks that we keep him warm and hydrated."  
  
"Help me up," Thom said. She kept back as Numair and Thom figured out where it would be least painful to apply pressure. 'Least' being the key word. "The living room is... through here." Thom balanced on his left foot, and Numair kept his arm around his hips, didn't want to touch his abdomen or shoulders. He sighed with a mix of relief and pain when Numair helped him into an arm chair. "Give me... the jacket." Won't use his name, Numair thought. He shared a look with Daine, and knew that she was thinking the same thing. Thom tucked 'the' jacket under his side as to avoid bleeding onto the upholstery.  
  
Uncovered, the bruises on his throat were more startling, looking like shadows and blood both. Thom had a young face, so similar to Alanna's. "Would you rather Daine or I stay with you as the other figures out where a tap is?" Numair asked.  
  
Thom didn't respond.

In a silent conversation the couple spoke, weighed pros and cons, and eventually they chose for Daine to stay with Thom. She sat on the arm chair opposite him, but stood once more to turn up the heat. She looked around the room, paintings and floral wreaths on the walls, antique rugs, the excessive technology that only rich people could morally manage. She gathered up as many blankets and cushions as she could and brought them to Thom, each time pausing and making eye contact before laying them over him.  
  
She couldn't tell if he was quite 'there'. He was conscious, but not there in the moment. It was similar to when Numair's head was stuck in a particularly tricky case, or reading. "Do you need anything?" she asked. He shook his head.  
  
Numair brought Thom a refilled bottle of water, then left again. He returned with a cup of sweet tea for Daine, and their bags. Neither of them knew what to say, so instead just sat, side by side, watching Thom transition between drinking with fierce thirst to complete disconnect. Daine's phone was balanced in her lap, bouncing her knees rapidly.  
  
Raoul's car was excessively loud, but it reduced Thom's panic when the huge man came in, still in white coat with medical kit in hand. "Oh, Thom," he whispered as he came in the door.  
  
"Don't pity me," Thom said, and it was decidedly an order. Raoul nodded, and 'doctor' mode seemed to kick in. Thom picked away each blanket carefully, folded them before dropping them onto the table beside him. He held his head high, even though it must have been painful.  
  
Raoul was efficient, and as soon as he had established Thom's level of consciousness gave him a heavy dose of painkillers. He covered Thom's torso, ankle, wrist, and throat in arnica and wound dressings. The perfect white shirt was ruined. It was one of Daine's shirts that replaced Thom's, both Numair and Raoul far larger than him. It was a soft grey blue, buttoned like the old one. It covered the bandages on his throat neatly.  
  
Numair took out his work phone and photographed each spot of blood, the stained shirt. He scrubbed the floor and walls of Thom's blood, bu t wrapped the towels and Thom's shirt in plastic as evidence. He never wanted to see blood again.  
  
Thom stood with a wince, ankle bandaged and feet wrapped in woollen socks, but he seemed thrilled to be able to walk. Well, as thrilled as could be expected. "Thank you," he said to Raoul, and his voice had only gotten more scratchy. "I should leave before the others get here."  
  
"No," Raoul said firmly. " You aren’t leaving my sight until I know you’re okay. I still think I should take you to the hospital.” Thom said nothing. “ I need to know who did this to you, Thom." Daine and Numair remained side by side, not talking, trying not to interfere. Thom stayed silent, eyes stubborn. Even standing he was tiny compared to Raoul. He had put 'the' jacket back on, after establishing it wasn't blood-stained.  
  
"No, you don't."  
  
Raoul fought to keep his voice steady. "You're a lawyer, Thom, you of all people know that we need to stop letting abuse slide away with societal complacency." Thom kept his chin held high, began pacing, limping once more. "There are six people with frequent access to this house, those are Jon, Gary the elder, Gary the younger, Lianne, Roald, and Roger." Thom didn't stop moving. Raoul had wiped his face with a wet cloth, the tear stains weren't quite so apparent, but he had the unmistakable look of someone fighting for his pride after crying for hours. "Today coming to the house are myself, Daine and Numair, Alanna, George Cooper, and Myles Olau. I saw Jon not two hours ago at the station, along with both Garys and Alanna. Lianne and Roald are out of the country. Daine and Numair found you this way. George is with his mother and Myles."  
  
Thom stayed silent.  
  
"That leaves Roger, Thom."  
  
"I can't do this right now," Thom barked out. His voice was getting worse as the bruising came out.  
  
"Thom, you need to--"  
  
"Everyone in this room knows that it was Roger, and that there's nothing that can be done, so talking about it won't change anything!" The burning tears swelled in his eyes and fell like hail, not rain. "It's Christmas holidays. There are six people coming to this house tonight, and I ask that if you are asked what happened to me you say I was mugged and I was brought into emergency."  
  
"Alanna would have been called. Jon would have been called." The logistics of his plan were so flawed that Numair was shocked, even taking into account Thom's state.  
  
"I don't care! I refuse to be some domestic violence sob story, victim of an older, more handsome man, to be crowded around and pitied."  
  
"If anyone in the world is unlikely to do any of that it is those here and those on their way," Raoul said. "As you well know."  
  
Thom sat down, put his arms around himself. The bandages on his wrist, torso, and throat gave him the look of a disproportionate pillow. Even with the pain killers he felt like his body was tearing away from him, broken skin to inflamed tissue to broken blood vessels.  
  
Perhaps he wasn't as tough as Alanna, but he was just as stubborn. He glared up at Raoul.  
  
"If anyone even looks at you wrong I'll tell 'em they're not helping, Thom," Daine said. She was shocked by her own voice. "And this is the safest place for you to be right now." Thom's eyes locked on hers, and Numair had a wild thought that their eyes, together, would be beautiful, vibrant storm blue against supernatural violet. Thom wasn't as people-smart as he should be, but Numair was sure he could pick up that Daine knew . Daine really knew, and put next to Thom she could likely out-stubborn him. Two fighters, they were.  
  
"When will Alanna get here?" he asked.  
  
"She'll be here any minute." Thom buried his face in his hands. "She'll find out soon either way, Thom." Raoul picked up Numair and Daine's bags. "I'll take these up to one of the guest rooms, yeah?"  
  
They nodded. Thom cried in silence. When he tried to pull his knees up to his chest the pain made him yelp. Somehow the painkillers had only made him feel more vulnerable. Numair brought him a box of tissues, reminded him to drink more water. Thom drew the too-large coat close around him, hid his face in its collar.  
  
Raoul cut Alanna, Jon, and Gary off before they entered the living room, all laughing jovially, and shoved them back into the corridor, ignoring Jon and Gary's mumbles of 'this is my house!'. Thom tried not to listen, he did try. Numair and Daine settled themselves in the chairs closest to him, both ready to snap at whoever deserved it.  
  
"Something bad has happened. Everyone's... okay, but... well... it's Thom..." Raoul stuttered over a few more syllables until Alanna snapped,  
  
"What about Thom? Spit it out." Thom wanted to scream the second he heard her voice.  
  
"Daine and Numair came in earlier today to blood all over the floor, and Thom with an array of injuries inflicted a few hours ago. They called me, and I came as soon as I could. He's got heavy bandaging around his neck, wrist, right side and ribs, and his left ankle. He's going to be fine, in the long term, and I've given him painkillers. He's asked that no-one display pity or sympathy, he feels vulnerable enough already." There as scuffling as Raoul spoke, and Thom knew Alanna was fighting to get past him.  
  
"Who--? Here--? Why--?" Jon was fumbling through his words. Thom hated his indignation, his naivety, his outrage. It was all too pure and heroic.   
  
"There is nothing at this point that can be do-- Alanna, for fuck's s--"  
  
Alanna had pushed her way past Raoul with a mix of fear and rage crackling around her. She saw Thom, curled around himself, small, and almost wept. " Thom. " He got to his feet with as much pride as he could muster, holding back the pain, and whispered her name. "Who did this?" Jon, Gary, and Raoul followed. They kept their faces blank, the true sons of politicians. Alanna looked between Thom and Raoul frantically and asked, "Can I hug you? Who did this? Oh my god, Thom."  
  
Thom took two steps forward and embraced Alanna gingerly, barely touching her. She ran her hands through his hair, crying against his shoulder in both solidarity and anger. "Who did--?"  
  
"Be quiet," Thom whispered. The sound of his voice almost made her jump, progressively more like sandpaper against hard plastic. He pulled back. Next to each other his battered state was only more apparent, the little blotches of anxious colour on his cheeks diminished next to the natural colour over Alanna's many freckles. "What was the plan for this evening, Jon? I would like to continue with my life."  
  
"I... Thom, we're the police , we have to report this."  
  
"And your cousin is one of the most powerful, well-loved men in the city, just try reporting him."  
  
There were three beats of silence. "Roger did this?" Gary whispered.  
  
"I don't want your pity, and there is no point in reporting him, he has too many connections and too much power."  
  
Before Thom quite knew what had happened Gary, Raoul, and Jon were caught in holding Alanna back from the door. She was silent, but she fought them for a good thirty seconds before going limp. Jon clutched her arm, held her back. "Let's order pizza," Jon said, and it was an order, coming from him.  
  
George and Myles arrived just as the pizza did, and they got the same talk from Raoul as the others had. They took it much better, but the both of them felt a sick, twisted satisfaction in knowing that they were right about Roger, and an even sicker repulsion at themselves, seeing Thom curled up in Roger's jacket.  
  
Raoul forced him to eat, but he said he was too close to throwing up to hold down much. He fell asleep while the others drank brandy and talked about police drama and Numair and Daine's baby and precedent cases and weirdest stories from the emergency room. He was so deeply asleep he didn't hear them talking about him, about Roger.  
  


* * *

  
Thom woke in the middle of the night in excruciating pain, barely able to breathe, and Raoul's whispers of 'it's okay, it's okay' accompanied a mouthful of pills. He realised as the sun rose that Raoul was asleep on the couch beside him, not tangled up in Gary's sheets and limbs upstairs.  
  
Alanna came downstairs just as the clock turned over to five past six. She sat down on the armchair across from Thom, only spared Raoul a glance. Her hair was spiked up, slanted from sleep, and her face was, for once, unreadable. Thom looked at her, eyes puffy and red, and begged her silently not to reprimand him. "Roger," she whispered.  
  
"Alanna, don't," Thom said. He could barely speak. It was like he could feel the bruise blossoming downwards from his skin to his vocal cords.  
  
She held back her flinch at the sound of his voice. "Roger," she repeated. "Thom... what... why..."  
  
"Don't ask me that unless you want the answers."  
  
"How are you... feeling?"  
  
"Like I've just been beaten up by my boyfriend." Thom's motion was unspeakably painful, just reaching for his bottle of water. "I told him I loved him two days ago. Serves me right."  
  
"Oh, Thom. Thom." Alanna dropped from the chair, knelt on the floor beside him and took his hand. He tried to smile, but it broke into a sob, Earth splitting under his skin.  
  
"Serves me fucking right," he repeated in a whisper. Alanna never was good at comforting, giving condolences. She ran her hands through his hair, held his shaking hands in her own, said nothing. He wanted to scream, tell her to find a way to fix it , she was his family, he was hurting, but it was too much energy he didn't have, it wasn't her fault. She hated Roger, she loved Thom. She supported him when she could, when she knew how.  
  
Raoul feigned sleep as Alanna held Thom to her as he cried, viciously and without restraint. "It's not your fault," she said. "It's not your fault, sweetheart--" the word fell from her lips like a foreign phrase. "--oh, sweetheart, it's not your fault. You didn't deserve this. No-one deserves this, you know that, Thom. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."  
  
Thom pushed her away with a start, and curled up around himself, in stark contrast to the way he held his head. "I'm okay, I'm fine. I-- I'm fine, I'm--"  
  
"No, you're not," she said, leaning back, resting on her arms. "Thom, you're not--"  
  
Raoul chose that moment to sit up, wiping his eyes free of sleep and yawning. Thom was ramrod straight, his muscles knotted under his skin like they were ready to snap. "Morning," he mumbled to the two of them. "How are you feeling, Thom?"  
  
"Like shit ," Thom said, wiping his eyes on the shoulder of Roger's jacket. "Talking hurts more."  
  
"The bruising's come out," Raoul said, fumbling with the blankets. "I'm going to go wash my hands, then I'll have a look. Do you have enough water?"  
  
Thom handed the bottle to Raoul, who nodded through another falsified yawn. "Do we need to go home, Thom?" Alanna asked. "We can, you don't have to do this."  
  
"No. I'll stay here. Numair needs help on his case."  
  
"That's low priority right now."  
  
"And what is high priority? Crying?"  
  
"Getting statements in, getting Roger locked up."  
  
Raoul came back with a cup of tea and Thom's refilled bottle in hand, "Don't make him talk any more than he needs to," he said. "I'm not going to undress everything, but I'll have a look at your throat and your ankle and your head ."  
  
"Numair said there was a lot of blood."  
  
"Heavy bleeding spots. The incisions are uniform, not very deep. Did you hit back, Thom?" Thom jutted forward his jaw and shook his head. "Yeah, heavy bleeding spot. They'll heal properly, but the ribs may be broken, not just bruised ." Raoul pulled back the bandages on Thom's throat. They were there mainly to cover the visual of it, Alanna realised, as the skin wasn't broken. It was horrific. She had seen worse, and corpses, died of choking, had colours like she had never seen, but they weren't her brother. They hadn't been murdered or abused by a man she knew, a man she distrusted, a man Thom should have distrusted, too. "So... pain scales are horrible, but I'd say in terms of one being tolerable, annoying, unmedicated pain, five being intolerable, in need of treatment, and ten being unbearable writhing on the floor, you were at a six yesterday?" Thom hummed agreement . "And today you're at a seven?" Thom hummed again . "That's natural, the second day usually hurts more."  
  
Raoul withdrew, but remained crouching in front of Thom. "I want to photograph some of these injuries." Thom shook his head. It made him dizzy. "I need visual records of these injuries. Then we’re going to go to the hospital.” Tears started flowing once more. “We need an x-ray of your ribs and your wrist. You’ve hit your head, your response times are low and your eyes aren’t focusing. I’ve already broken the Hippocratic Oath by not having you in hospital already.”   
  
Thom kept shaking his head, but when Raoul unwrapped his ankle, his wrist, pulled back the bandages on his side, he didn't fight. No matter what he said, he cried. Alanna went upstairs and spoke in rapid whispers to Jon, who cried, too.  
  


* * *

  
"I don't care why," Jon said, "and I don't want to hear your excuses. I should lock you up right now. But I won't, because I love you, and because Thom loves you. But if you ever , ever come near him again Alanna will kill you. More importantly, I'll let her. Fuck, I'd help. Get out."  
  
"Jonathan--"

George was bigger than Jon, bigger than Roger, and his anger wasn't tame like Jon's. Roger left without a word.


End file.
